


sore winners make for good losers

by youcouldmakealife



Series: between the teeth [21]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 05:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4906525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David hasn’t been feeling shitty, lately. He doesn’t miss it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sore winners make for good losers

Less than a week after they go for drinks, Volkov decides David can’t call him Volkov anymore.

“Call me Kiro,” he says. “No argument,” he adds, just as David’s about to argue.

“Not Kirill?” David asks.

“Kiro is nickname,” he says. “Like David is for Davidson.”

“My name’s not — ” David starts, before Kiro flashes him a grin that tells David he probably knew that already, and was trying to get a rise out of David, and succeeding. David bets Vladislav put him up to it. Fucking Vladislav. 

Kiro calls him Davidson for the rest of the day, until David, exasperated, tells him to stop calling him that.

“You want me to call you David, then,” Kiro says.

David looks over at Vladislav. Vladislav smirks back at him.

“Fine,” David says.

*

David is slightly surprised to realise he’s starting to find training fun. It’s always been useful; even when it’s things he doesn’t like doing, he knows it’s going to make him a better player, so even the worst parts are worth it, but there were a lot of mornings where he knew he’d be hitting the pool, or that Vladislav would add extra weights for Kurmazov, probably smirking on the inside, and David honestly just wanted to turn off his alarm and crawl back under the covers. Off days always felt like a useless waste of time when he could be making himself a better player, but now there’s a restlessness to them, a sense of anticipation for what tomorrow will bring. 

Kiro still makes fun of him every time they get in the water, but he’s been correcting David’s form as well, something that keeps them in the water longer, and gets an eye roll from Vladislav. “You are fighting the water,” Kiro had said, nodding like he was wise, even though it was a ridiculous statement. Except it wasn’t, David realised, when he was cutting through the water, expending half the energy to reach the same goal.

“You trying to take my job, Volkov?” Vladislav asked gruffly after that session, but he also ruffled Kiro’s wet hair, so David doesn’t think he was actually mad.

David will never like losing, not even in something as irrelevant to hockey as a fifteen minute swim, but Kiro’s so over the top smug when he wins that David can’t take it seriously, can’t get too upset, either, because it’d make him look ridiculous. For some reason, it stung worse when Kurmazov would greet a win with a shrug, or a complete lack of acknowledgment, like it was so easy to beat David it didn’t warrant notice, whereas Kiro lifts ten pounds more than David and runs around the weight room with his shirt pulled over his head like he just scored the winning goal in the World Cup.

“You are an infant!” Vladislav yells at Kiro, right before he flops down on the ground, breathlessly grinning at David’s feet.

“Rematch,” David says.

“Deal,” Kiro says.

“No deal,” Vladislav says. “I’m the boss here.”

Kiro sticks his tongue out at Vladislav and David laughs. 

“You’re a bad influence on Chapman,” Vladislav says.

“I’m not,” Kiro says, pulling his shirt down. “Right Davidson?”

“You’re okay,” David says, nudging him with his sneaker.

*

David doesn’t believe in serendipity, or anything like that, so it’s just downright weird when, five minutes after Kiro texts him with a _drinks friday davidson! no excuse! ))_ , he gets a text from Jake, the second that day, after a comment that morning on the Jays rout last night, _i’m in town fri nite r u busy? no pressure tho! :)_

David should just make excuses, or say no, or not even answer, but he _wants_ to see Jake, an urge that makes him feel uncomfortable, especially because he knows if they see one another, as likely or not it’s going to end like last time, because David really isn’t very good at self-control when he’s around Jake. He’d blame Jake for that, but it’s his own fault and he knows it. 

_okay,_ David sends back, _if I can bring a friend._

 _sure :)_ , Jake sends within a minute.

*

David forgets to mention it to Kiro until Friday. Or, that’s not true. David doesn’t want Kiro to say he doesn’t want to impose, or to make other plans, because then David would have to cancel Friday, because he knows himself and Jake well enough to be pretty sure the only way he can, in good conscience, go out and sit across from him, beer in hand, is if someone else is there. Maybe they need to talk, or whatever, but David doesn’t think that’d happen if it was just the two of them anyway, just knows that at the end of the night he’d be weak, and invite Jake back, and whether Jake said yes, or Jake said no, that there was someone else, or that he just didn’t want to, didn’t think it was a good idea, he’d be left feeling shitty Saturday morning.

David hasn’t been feeling shitty, lately. He doesn’t miss it.

“Is it okay if I bring someone tonight?” David asks. 

“Sure,” Kiro says, easy, doesn’t even ask who, which makes David feel like he has to explain.

“I have a friend in town,” David says. “Jake Lourdes. Uh, of the Pan—”

“I know who Jake Lourdes is,” Kiro says. “You’re friends?”

“Yeah,” David says. “I guess.”

“Everyone always acts like you two hate each other,” Kiro says.

David shrugs a little. “The media’s stupid,” he says, finally, instead of saying, a lot of the time, he did hate Jake, especially for the times he didn’t.

“True words, brother,” Kiro says, holding his fist out until David, rolling his eyes, bumps it with his own.

*

Kurmazov recommended another place to David, thankfully without winking faces or innuendos, this time, because David’s still feeling mortified about that happening the first time, like the time his coach in the Q sang karaoke, belting out Roch Voisine, the feeling of seeing something he wasn’t supposed to.

He said it was a sports bar but really more football based, so he rarely got hassled. It’s not football season, obviously, and it’s half empty when they head there after training, most of the people there idly watching darts, which is probably all that’s on until the Yankees game at seven.

Jake gave him an ETA around the same time as theirs, but by the time he arrives they’re already mostly finished their first pint, and Kiro’s successfully talked him into splitting a basket of waffle fries, because for some reason David’s a lot better at saying no to fries when they aren’t waffle shaped.

“Sorry, totally forgot about New York traffic somehow,” Jake says a little breathlessly, then, “Hi.”

“Hi,” David says, almost dumbly. Jake’s gone dark the way he always does during summer, which David knows is from a refusal to wear sunscreen, as stupid as that is. His hair’s gotten shaggy again, David can tell even under his baseball cap, close to the length it’d been when he cut it, long enough to get in his eyes. He’s always been broad, but he looks broader, somehow, is wearing an old t-shirt from the Toronto camp, and it stretches tight over his shoulders. David didn’t think you were supposed to still have growth spurts at twenty-one, and if you were, it wasn’t fair for Jake to have one, when he’s already so much bigger.

David realises, belatedly, that Kiro’s standing up, because that’s the polite thing to do when you meet someone. He stands as well.

“Um, Jake, Kir—” David starts, before getting self-conscious, because Jake is Jake with everyone, even the media, but David doesn’t know if Kiro’s like that, or if it’d make him uncomfortable the way David feels whenever his dad introduces him as Dave.

“Kirill,” Kiro finishes, so smoothly it’s almost like David didn’t get stuck, though he knows they both noticed. “Nice to meet you, Jacobson,” he says, and David snorts.

“You’re a Pen, right?” Jake asks, this funny little smile on his face that David’s unfamiliar with.

“Sometimes Pittsburgh, sometimes Wilkes-Barre, always a Penguin,” Kiro agrees.

David’s been sitting across from Kiro, but he takes the moment to slide his drink over to Kiro’s side of the table. He remembers what happened last time he went out with Jake and teammates, Jake’s hand on his thigh under the table, and Kiro’s smart enough to pick up on it, David thinks, so it’s safer just to sit beside him, even if he’s not sure Jake would try anything.

“How do you two know each other?” Jake asks.

“Training,” David says, as Kiro says, “Dating site,” and David laughs but Jake doesn’t, which is probably a first.

“Cool,” Jake says, the word sounding the opposite of the way it always does, coming out of his mouth. When he sits across from them his shoe brushes David’s, and David feels his neck growing hot. 

“Drinks,” Kiro says, loudly enough that David startles, pulling away like they got caught. 

“Drinks,” Jake says, a little flat, “yeah, we need drinks”, and David thinks, not for the first time, that this might not have been a good idea. When it comes to Jake, David’s ideas never are.

“Drinks,” he repeats, quiet, and when Jake’s sneaker nudges his, he pulls his foot away.


End file.
